Capitol Police Seeking Arrest Warrant for Congresswoman

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Published: April 4, 2006

The Capitol Police said Monday that they were seeking a warrant to arrest Representative Cynthia A. McKinney for an altercation with a police officer last week.

In addition to the rarity of a member of Congress facing such an arrest, the case has also attracted national attention because Ms. McKinney has contended that, as a black woman, she was mistreated because of racial bias.

She held a news conference on Friday to denounce the actions of the officer, flanked by the entertainers Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte and surrounded by black schoolchildren holding signs that read, ''Is Cynthia a target?'' She and her lawyers said that the officer had failed to recognize her and then touched her inappropriately, and that her treatment represented of a pattern of police harassment of black people.

A spokesman for the United States attorney for the District of Columbia said that prosecutors were reviewing the police request and expected to make a decision soon. United States attorneys handle all criminal violations in the district, which does not have a local criminal prosecutor.

The altercation took place at a checkpoint building in the Capitol complex. According to accounts by police officers and Congressional officials, Ms. McKinney went around a metal detector, as members of Congress are allowed to do. The police officer reportedly told her to stop, and when she did not he apparently tried to stop her, provoking a physical response from Ms. McKinney.

She has acknowledged that she was not wearing the lapel pin that identifies her as a member of Congress. But she said that the police responsible for protecting lawmakers should recognize them on sight.

Ms. McKinney, a Georgia Democrat, has raised the issue of racial bias in the past. In her first term in Congress in 1993, she publicly complained about a confrontation with an elevator operator who she said initially assumed she could not be a member of Congress because of her appearance and race. (Ms. McKinney acknowledges that her attire is unusual, especially her gold cowboy boots and running shoes.)

In her 1996 campaign for re-election, she called her opponents ''a rag-tag group of neo-Confederates.'' She has also said she complained to President Bill Clinton of ''disparate treatment'' at two White House events during his administration because of her race.